Four grown kids, five delightful grandchildren, constant, long-time partner. A retired academic, I'm adapting to life in a Vancouver condo after decades in a waterfront home on a very small (Canadian) West Coast island. Keen to discover what new priorities emerge, what interests persist, in this urban life after 60!

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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Today's Blessings:

1. I get home about 6:45, and I've generally already walked 90 minutes (to and from school) OR walked 30 minutes and done a Pilates class. So I'm not too keen to take the dog for a walk. But having left her with only a visiting petsitter this weekend, I was feeling guilty, so grabbed her leash and headed out into the dusk for a little stroll 'round the island. My reward? Spotting 5 or 6 bats skittering through the twilight. Singly, I hasten to add, not 5 or 6 at once or I would have been less pleased, more alarmed. But between the bat visuals and the frog acoustics, I was glad Skeena urged me out.

2. The weather! It's been sunny almost a week now, and there's more sunshine scheduled, with comfortable temperatures in the low 20s -- makes my walks up the hill to school a pleasure.

3. My garden. Haven't had the time I'd like to appreciate it, and the photo above is of a Hydrangea aspera blooming several weeks ago rather than of some of the emerging fall beauty. I'm going to try to get out with a camera this weekend and show you some berries and grasses which are looking rather spectacular right now.

4. All my classes. Knowing that there will be some tough slogging ahead as students start neglecting their poetry reading in favour of Biology or Philosophy or the latest heartbreak or hangover, I'm savouring the discussions we're having right now. Given that we're only meeting for the 3rd time, I'm thrilled to have lively conversations about sonnets happening this week. Today, I had to apologize to the three students still wanting to contribute when I dismissed the class three minutes overtime -- they were arguing the interpretation of Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" and chuckling at the way he was sneering at poets like Henry Constable whose "My Lady's Presence Makes the Roses Red" they found so ridiculous. Honestly, I could barely get a word in edgewise, which is very much the way I like it. They're already beginning to see the ways poets manipulate and exploit the sonnet form and gaining a bit of confidence in their ability to analyse. It's always tough to insist they first figure out WHAT the poet says and HOW s/he says it BEFORE they start speculating about its meaning (and I avoid like the plague the expression "deep meaning").

5. Having all my kids in one province again. Megan and her fella, Rob, got back to Vanc'r yesterday from Toronto. Rob starts work on Thursday; Meg's still looking. They're crashing at our Vanc'r apartment (on an air mattress in the living-room -- it's a 500 sq. ft. apartment, one-bedroom) and looking for their own place. Can't wait to have a big family dinner with all of them home.

6. Getting back to my Pilates classes. My instructor closed her studio for August, and I enjoyed having a free schedule for that month, but without my Pilates Reformer sessions, the shoulders get closer to my ears, the hips lock into place, and the hamstrings, not so happy! I know I'm going to be sore in various places over the next few weeks as I get back into shape and get stretched out again, but it's worth it. I also enjoy seeing my Pilates buddies -- it's a small class since there are only seven Reformers, and some of us have been coming at the same time for four or five years now.

So thanks, LBR, for inspiring me to focus on the positive. I'm too short on time to balance this with a list of the things that make me unhappy which I think is just as well -- no point going to the dark side unnecessarily -- when it arrives, it'll be soon enough.

8 comments:

What's making me happy right now is the weather...it's cooled down into the 70's (though I know it won't last...we still have the Santa Ana's to get through) so I can start wearing some of my silk scarves again!

The sun is finally back here so snap. Sadly I dressed for rain so I have stripped down by two layers!Before Daisy and after Kitty I was a Pilates fiend, I had a wonderful teacher who only had to very lightly touch my shoulder for me to realise how tense I had become. I found other teachers less proficient and dropped the class after having Leyla, she took up so much of my time. I have now decided to hunt a down class because with 10 years under my belt it should really be inate and need less teacher, more a nudge in the right direction. After photographing my self all this week I realise more than ever I really need it.

Alison: I bet that sun's very welcome, even if it does demand wardrobe adjustments.I don't know what I'd do if my Pilates instructor left town or retired or whatever -- she's so well trained, continually taking new workshops, etc., and very in tune with each of us -- as yours did, mine spots an imbalance almost instantly and then works with me to get things back in order.Cybill: That sounds so delightful. I remember that part of those days fondly.LBR: Well, it was a good idea, celebrating happiness, so I borrowed it. Yay! to your visa.

I'd love to hear your response to my post. Agree, disagree, even go off on a tangent, I love to know you're out there, readers. Let's chat, shall we? I apologize, though, for the temporary necessity of the Word Verification -- spam comments have been tiresomely numerous lately, and I'm hoping to break that pattern.

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Wisdom to live by and Other Clever Quotations

Events are not changeable at their climax, not through virtue and resolve, but only in their strictly ordinary, habitual course through reason and practice.Walter Benjamin, "The Author as Producer," Address delivered at the Institute for the Study of Fascism, Paris, on 27 April 1934

Coherence is born of random abundance. Kim Stafford in The Muses Among UsThe world is so full of a number of thingsI'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses

Bourgeois heroism: the acrobatics of being in so many places practically at once, and doing so many amazing things in one day, and then conversing over dinner with unflagging energy.

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